


a fragile peace in the back of my head

by Serie11



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Horses, Mid-Canon, Recovered Memories, Sheikah Slate, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27347581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: His head is full of pitfalls and traps and he is navigating them in the dark with no light and no help besides the few photographs on his tablet. Some days it feels like he can’t trust himself, with how he can stumble over the most innocuous things, but at the same time trusting in his instincts and in himself has brought him where he is today. Each new memory that breaches, fierce and unstoppable, is another arrow in his quiver and another hole in his heart.
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36
Collections: Fic In A Box





	a fragile peace in the back of my head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZScalantian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZScalantian/gifts).



“Woah,” Link says, patting the side of his horse’s neck. She whuffles softly and slows, her hooves clip-clopping as they cross the bridge. He can smell a promise of rain in the wind, but for now the sky is still clear and the house on the other side of the bridge comes into view quickly. 

The two carpenters are sitting by the cooking fire like they always are, and Link can smell something delicious simmering in the pot. He’ll have to ask for the recipe later. He lifts a hand and gets two in response, which is enough for him. 

He clicks his tongue and swings off the horse. She turns her head to look at him as he pats her shoulder and takes her by the bridle to lead her around the side of the house. The stable there is small, but Bolson had agreed to patch it up if Link could provide the wood. He’d spent an afternoon cutting up wood in a forest in north Faron and had brought back enough that the carpenters had told him that it would be no trouble at all. 

Bolson really must know how to build stables, because there’s hooks and places inside for everything that Link could need. He has some grooming gear that he picked up from a girl in Akkala in exchange for investigating a rumor for her, but he normally keeps it all inside his saddlebags. It’ll be good to have a place for anything extra he finds, as well as backups if somehow he manages to lose them. 

He untacks the white horse before fetching her a bucket of water to drink from. Even with the hard pace that he’d set all morning, her ears still prick forward in interest and she nuzzles his pockets to see if he has any endura carrots to treat her with. He gives her half an apple to distract her and focuses on getting some of the worst tangles out of her mane. 

This isn’t the first horse that he’s come across, and not the first that he’d taken into his care either. The stables dotted across Hyrule know his name and face by now, and are always happy to help out after word had gotten around with how he had helped out several stables in the network. 

She is the first he hasn’t named, though. 

He accepted without complaint the name given to his first horse by one of the children of the stable. The second he had named Meadow after the place that he caught her. The third horse he thought about for several days, before calling him Gladiolus, for the strange shape of his socks that reminded Link of the flower. He has had this mare for almost a full moon, and he has yet to part from her, and has yet to name her. Something about how her coat shines in the sunlight makes his head blur, like he should be seeing something else instead. He can recognise one of his buried memories by now, but this is the longest he has been around one without it surfacing. 

“It’s not your fault,” he murmurs to her, and then shakes his head. He doesn’t normally talk to his horses besides the few signs and sounds that he has trained her to recognise. She whickers to him, and he runs a hand down her side before turning her loose in the paddock that overlooks the town. With a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other, the only way for a horse to leave would be the bridge. Link wonders if he can ask Bolson to put a gate on it. 

The mare walks off to investigate, her nose low to the ground as she starts nibbling at the grass. She’s fearless as well as fast, and Link watches her go for another few seconds before turning back to the house. 

The two carpenters have done a good job on the final touches that Link has asked for. There’s already a growing pile of spare weapons under the stairs, and the chest at the foot of his bed is almost exploding with how much armour he has stuffed in there. The house really had been a blessing; he’d been storing his things in the spare room in Impa’s house, but the memories that she and the village provoked gave him a constant low level headache. There’s something of that about this house too, but it’s calmer. Comforting, rather than the stress that follows him around Kakariko village. 

He asks Bolson about the gate on the bridge, and he hums a little bit before nodding. “Three hundred rupees, and there should be enough wood left over from how much you brought us last time. Leave it to us!” 

Link nods his thanks, and Karson motions towards the mare, who is grazing peacefully at the edge of the meadow. “Beautiful horse,” he says. “Looks fit for a royal! I’m glad we could build a nice home for her to live in.” 

Link barely stops himself from holding his head as a spark of pain runs from the top of his skull down his spine. _Royal_ , something whispers from behind him, and Link pastes a blank expression on his face and nods to the two carpenters before turning and fleeing back towards the stable. He presses his back against the wood and his hands against his face and just breathes. His head is full of pitfalls and traps and he is navigating them in the dark with no light and no help besides the few photographs on his tablet. Some days it feels like he can’t trust himself, with how he can stumble over the most innocuous things, but at the same time trusting in his instincts and in himself has brought him where he is today. Each new memory that breaches, fierce and unstoppable, is another arrow in his quiver and another hole in his heart. 

But he’s never been one to shy away from the unknown, so he takes the minute he needs, and then heads back outside. The white horse is still grazing on the plain, and Link approaches her warily, feet gliding across the ground silently. Something must alert her, because she lifts her head slightly to turn and look at him, and Link feels himself falling deep as the memory swallows him whole. 

* * *

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” 

Zelda leans forward slightly to inspect the horse through the fence. They’re standing out in Hyrule Field, where the royal stable holds horses for the royal family and their retainers. 

“Of course, I’ve never had leave to ride for more than a few hours at a time,” Zelda continues. She’s wearing her nice dress, the one that she always used to don before they took to travelling on the road. “But you grew up far from here, and travelled here on horseback, didn’t you? So you must know plenty about horse care and horse riding. Is your steed here?” 

Link shakes his head. 

“Oh,” Zelda says, frowning. “Well, we leave tomorrow, so you should bring your horse here so we can set off together with minimal fuss."

Link nods, and she turns back to the horse. It’s pure white, and Link can see the strength and stamina in the curve of its movements. For a long journey, Zelda could have a far worse steed. Link’s own horse has been through many trials with him, and they know each other well, which he thinks is often more useful than just good breeding. He’ll have to make sure Zelda and her horse get along. 

“It’s rather… exciting, isn’t it?” Zelda asks. “Going out to see the world. Father has always kept me close to the castle… not that I didn’t want to be there,” she says all in a rush. “All of the Guardians and all of my research is there, after all. But I would have liked to go and see the things that were in my books. Data that is gathered first hand is most reliable, after all.” She stares at the horse for a second in silence. “If only it were under better circumstances. If only I had a choice about where we are going…” 

She looks abruptly at Link. “No matter. I will be here at dawn, and you should be here to meet me, understood?” 

Link nods, and the memory goes blurry at the edges as Zelda turns away from him. 

* * *

He surfaces from the memory like breaking through the cold chill of the Zora waters. Very little time seems to have passed, since the white horse is standing in the same spot, blinking at him. 

He feels hot and cold all at the same time, which isn’t too dissimilar from his other memories that came from the slate. He pulls out his tablet to check that there are no photos of a white horse that he has somehow overlooked. 

The photos are the same ones that were there this morning. The ones that were already loaded onto the slate before he received it, and the passing few that he has taken himself; a sunset over the Necluda Sea, a single Silent Princess flower. Some strange things that he sees inside Shrines that he wants to go back to if he can. Several photos of useful plants that he can use for the Sheikah sensor. There is no photo of an elusive white horse. 

The horse makes a soft noise and Link goes to her side. 

“I still didn’t remember your name,” Link murmurs, pressing his face against the horse’s mane. For some reason he’s upset by that. The horse in front of him isn’t the white horse that Zelda rode, after all. It’s been far too long. A descendant, maybe, but even that seems far fetched. Would the horse have escaped after Zelda had no more need of it, stuck inside Hyrule Castle? From what he can remember of her, she would be someone to do something like that; freeing her horse before she goes forward, alone. 

The feeling sticks in his throat, and he swallows it down with difficulty. In the morning he’ll set off to try and climb Mt Lanayru. He’s heard a few whispers of a sacred place at the summit, and finding another Spring would be useful. Another reason why he’s leaving the white horse here at the house. The snowy peaks are no place for her. 

“I’ll be back soon,” he says, and doesn’t know if he’s talking to the horse, or to a Princess, fighting all on her own and waiting for her knight to help her finish the battle. Either way, it’s a promise he intends to keep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact about my botw playthrough, I captured the royal white horse before I got the quest to find her, so I spent about 2 hours running around the supposed area where this horse was before I went 'wait a second. I'm looking for a super good white horse? I _have_ a super good white horse.' and guess what when I showed her to the guy I got the quest completed. The openness of the botw landscape allows funny things like that to happen, huh


End file.
